page_title: Interstate 696
section_title: Controversies over middle segment
hierarchical_section_title: Interstate 696 / History / Controversies over middle segment
caption_attribution_description: English: Pedestrian plazas over Interstate 696 in Oak Park, Michigan
context_page_description: Interstate 696 is an east–west auxiliary Interstate Highway in the US state of Michigan. The state trunkline highway is also known as the Walter P. Reuther Freeway, named for the prominent auto industry union head by the Michigan Legislature in 1971. I-696 is a bypass route, detouring around the city of Detroit through the city's northern suburbs in Oakland and Macomb counties. It starts by branching off I-96 and I-275 at its western terminus in Farmington Hills, and runs through suburbs including Southfield, Royal Oak and Warren before merging into I-94 at St. Clair Shores on the east end. It has eight lanes for most of its length and is approximately 10 miles north of downtown Detroit. I-696 connects to other freeways such as I-75 and M-10. Local residents sometimes refer to I-696 as "The Autobahn of Detroit".
  Planning for the freeway started in the 1950s. Michigan state officials proposed the designation I-98, but this was not approved. Construction started on the first segment in 1961, and the Lodge Freeway was designated Business Spur Interstate 696 the following year. The western third of the freeway opened in 1963, and the eastern third was completed in January 1979.
context_section_description: The central section was the most controversial. Governor James Blanchard was 15 years old and a high school sophomore in neighboring Pleasant Ridge when the freeway was proposed and purchased a home in the area in 1972. He joked during remarks at the dedication in 1989, "The unvarnished truth about this freeway? I wasn't even alive when it was first proposed," and added, "frankly, I never thought it would go through." Total cost at completion for the entire freeway at the end of the 30-year project was $675 million (equivalent to $1.21 billion in 2018).
  Arguments between local officials were so intense that during the 1960s, then-Governor George W. Romney once locked fighting bureaucrats in a community center until they would agree on a path for the freeway. During the 1970s, local groups used then-new environmental regulations to oppose the Interstate. The freeway was noted in a Congressional subcommittee report on the "Major Interstate System Route Controversy in Urban Areas" or the controversies in 1970. Before 1967, local communities had to approve highway locations and designs, and the debates over I-696 prompted the passage of an arbitration statute. That statute was challenged by Pleasant Ridge and Lathrup Village before being upheld by the Michigan Supreme Court. Lathrup Village later withdrew from a planning agreement in 1971; had that agreement been implemented, construction on the central section was scheduled to commence in 1974 and finish in 1976.
  The community of Orthodox Jews in Oak Park wanted the freeway to pass to the north of their suburb. When this was deemed to be futile, the community asked for changes to the design that would mitigate the impact of the freeway to the pedestrian-dependent community. Final approval in 1981 of the freeway's alignment was contingent on these mitigation measures. To address the community's unique needs, the state hired a rabbi to serve as a consultant on the project. In addition, a series of landscaped plazas were incorporated into the design, forming the tunnels through which I-696 passes. These structures are a set of three 700-foot-wide (210 m) bridges that cross the freeway within a mile (1.6 km). They allow members of the Jewish community to walk to synagogues on the Sabbath and other holidays when Jewish law prohibits driving. These plazas had their length limited; if they were longer, they would be considered tunnels that would require ventilation systems.
  The Detroit Zoo was concerned that noise and air pollution from the Interstate would disturb the animals. They were satisfied by $12 million (equivalent to $21.6 million in 2018) spent on a new parking ramp and other improvements. The City of Detroit tried to stop I-696 as well, but in the end the city was forced to redesign its golf course. A refusal to grant an additional nine feet (2.7 m) of right-of-way by Detroit forced additional design and construction delays during the 1980s.
  One of the last obstacles to construction of the freeway was a wetlands area near Southfield. MDOT received a permit from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to destroy 6 ¹⁄₂ acres (2.6 ha) of wetland and create a replacement 11-acre (4.5 ha) area. In the process, some prairie roses and wetlands milkweed were transplanted from the path of I-696 in 1987. The final section of the eight-lane freeway opened at a cost of $436 million (equivalent to $784 million in 2018) on December 15, 1989. At the time, one caller to a Detroit radio show commented, "do you realize we have been to the moon and back in the time it has taken to get that road from Ferndale to Southfield?"
caption: Pedestrian plazas in Oak Park
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